1. Field of the Invention
Embodiments of the present invention generally relate to network security and, more particularly, to a method and apparatus for determining a security risk posed by a mobile device requesting a connection to a network.
2. Description of the Related Art
Highly mobile computing devices such as smartphones, personal digital assistants (PDAs) and ultra-mobile personal computers (UMPCs) have become ubiquitous in our society. People rely on these mobile computing devices as an integrated part of their daily lives. Very often, people bring these mobile computing devices from a secure workplace environment to a less secure home environment or another insecure environment.
By their very nature, mobile computing devices are designed to search for and connect to available computer networks. Mobile computing devices that are not properly secured may connect indiscriminately to any available computer network. BLUETOOTH enabled computing devices may connect to any other BLUETOOTH enabled device within close proximity. The user of the mobile computing device may be unaware the mobile computing device has connected to another computer network or to another mobile computing device.
Mobile computing devices are susceptible to computer viruses and malware attacks when placed into an unsecured environment. Further, these computer viruses can spread to a standard computer network environment, e.g., the user's workplace network, when the user returns with the mobile computing device to the secure workplace environment. Thus, an unsecured mobile computing device can function as a backdoor for a computer virus to enter into a secure network environment.
Mobile computing devices generally have less processing power than a standard computing device, e.g., a desktop or a laptop computer. Because of the limited processing power, scanning a mobile computing device for computer viruses is a time consuming process. As such, mobile devices generally do not have virus scanning programs resident on the device. As such, the scan burden is placed upon the user's desktop computer or server when synchronization is performed. The long scanning process interferes with the ability of the user to use the mobile computing device for minimal tasks such as synchronizing the mobile computing device to a desktop computer. Thus, there is a need in the art for a method and apparatus that provides security to a highly mobile computing device and to a computer network without negatively impacting the user experience.